Circuits for computing magnitudes of complex numbers are widely used. Navigation and fire control systems, for example, make extensive use of such circuits. Both analog and digital approaches are used, and in the case of digital implementation, a special purpose circuit may be used or a general purpose computer may be employed.
As new signal processing applications have developed, they have brought with them the need for more rapid and accurate computations, trends which are often at cross purposes. These requirements are manifested for example in real time digital signal processing in such areas as radar, acoustics and image processing. Although iteration is often employed in such applications to achieve precision, the resultant process is time-consuming and limits the computation rate.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide a complex magnitude computing process and circuit which simultaneously provides high precision and high throughput. Another object of the invention is to provide a digital circuit for computing complex number magnitudes which is amenable to VLSI or gate array implementation. A still further object is to provide a complex magnitude computing technique amenable to expanded word length and increased resolution.